CHICAGO — Is it safe to have your arteries unclogged at a hospital that lacks heart surgeons who can operate if something goes wrong?
1. Comment by Carrot C. (CarrotCake)— March 30,2008 @ 1:06AM
Ratings:-0+0
Bad idea to allow angioplasties in non-emergency situations.
It's not always known if an angioplasty is even necessary, and if performed on the wrong patient, the procedure itself could kill or cause them serious side effects or permanent injury.
If it isn't an emergency, there are a number of tests and diagnosing procedures that should always be done first, before any medical procedure.
Angioplasties are over-performed by heart specialists now, as a way to increase their income.
What do you think small hospitals will do? Especially if you have health insurance or Medicare, which cover angioplasties. (Dollar signs in the doctors and hospital's eyes.)
I had a heart specialist, that kept trying to push an angioplasty on me, before doing all the necessary tests to determine the cause of my painful, increasing angina attacks. I refused. Said it would be my last choice, until more tests were run.
Turns out, an angioplasty would have put me in real danger for the type of heart ailments I have. People have died from the procedure, or complications later. Anything invasive to one's body, should be the last choice, unless it's an emergency.
I ended up diagnosing the cause of the angina attacks myself. Some heart specialist, who was also a surgeon. I was just a money making procedure to them. They could have cared less about making a proper diagnosis first.
We've added a feature to the comments pages - the ability to easily add paragraph breaks, boldface type and a few other typographical aids to your comments. Launch toolbar
Use single or double carriage returns to put line breaks or paragraph breaks in your comments.
At the same time, we removed the ability to put HTML coding into the comments. People were misusing that feature by pulling in cartoons, photos and other copyrighted materials from publications elsewhere. We won't allow you to use our pages to violate other publications' copyrights.
We've added a story to the site that includes a few tips to resolve common problems. You can use the comment thread attached to that story for practice and testing of the markup tools: Go to story | Go to the practice thread
General Instructions
Welcome to the story comments section of StarNet. Here are some helpful hints with you:
You must be logged in to comment or rate comments. Log in or create an account through our registration system.
All comments are subject to our guidelines (listed below) and our user agreement.
Comment Reporting
You can report other users' comments that are in violation of the StarNet User Guidelines. Users are limited to three (3) reports per day and are not allowed to report their own comments.
Any comment that has been reported will be moderated by StarNet. The comment will either be approved or rejected. Approval or rejection is based solely on the StarNet User Guidelines. Comments are only able to be reported once and are not viewable while awaiting moderation.
If you are a registered site user and are logged in, you can vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the comments.
The total votes of approval and disapproval on that comment will be updated when you vote including your vote and any other votes that have been cast since your browser last loaded this page.
Votes by users who have been banned from commenting don't count in the totals.
User Guidelines
We welcome your comments on articles, editorials, columns, other topics on StarNet or any subjects important to you. Commentary submitted to StarNet (www.azstarnet.com) may be published or distributed in print, electronically or other forms. Opinions expressed in www.azstarnet.com's comments reflect the opinions of the author, and are not necessarily the opinions of the Star, StarNet, or its parent company. See terms of service for more information.
Our guidelines prohibit the solicitation of products or services, the impersonation of another site user, threatening or harassing postings and the use of vulgar, abusive, obscene or sexually oriented language, defamatory or illegal material. You may not post content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual preference, disability or other classification. It's fine to criticize ideas, but ad hominem attacks are prohibited. Users who violate those standards may lose their privileges on azstarnet.com.
Don't violate other publications' copyrights.
Do we edit user comments? No. The writers are responsible for the opinions they express and the accuracy of the information they provide. StarNet reserves the right to remove comments that violate our guidelines policy.
Small-hospital angioplasties not as risky as feared
CHICAGO — Is it safe to have your arteries unclogged at a hospital that lacks heart surgeons who can operate if something goes wrong?Bad idea to allow angioplasties in non-emergency situations.
It's not always known if an angioplasty is even necessary, and if performed on the wrong patient, the procedure itself could kill or cause them serious side effects or permanent injury.
If it isn't an emergency, there are a number of tests and diagnosing procedures that should always be done first, before any medical procedure.
Angioplasties are over-performed by heart specialists now, as a way to increase their income.
What do you think small hospitals will do? Especially if you have health insurance or Medicare, which cover angioplasties. (Dollar signs in the doctors and hospital's eyes.)
I had a heart specialist, that kept trying to push an angioplasty on me, before doing all the necessary tests to determine the cause of my painful, increasing angina attacks. I refused. Said it would be my last choice, until more tests were run.
Turns out, an angioplasty would have put me in real danger for the type of heart ailments I have. People have died from the procedure, or complications later. Anything invasive to one's body, should be the last choice, unless it's an emergency.
I ended up diagnosing the cause of the angina attacks myself. Some heart specialist, who was also a surgeon. I was just a money making procedure to them. They could have cared less about making a proper diagnosis first.
Report this comment